24 Years

At some point during my early years of fatherhood, I considered the 6-year gap between the birth of my oldest and the birth of my youngest child. I calculated that I would have 24 years of parenthood before they were all adults which seemed like a luxurious eternity, practically endless in its expanse. Definitely enough time to perfect the art of raising children.

I wrote about this before, at the ten year mark with my "A Decade of Parenthood" post. At that point, I admitted to not knowing much about parenting, but I still thought I would learn it all eventually. It also seemed to me that I had all the time in the world to do so. Wrong and wrong.

By the time any of my imaginary readers see this post, my youngest will be 18 years old; my 24 years will have completely elapsed. Along the way, I came to realize that there is no right way to parent; it's clearly an ongoing exercise of "make-it-up as you go". But I surely underestimated how quickly it would pass. The whole ordeal is like a runaway train that picks up speed every year... you can't slow it down and you can't catch up to climb back on. It just barrels down the track toward an uncertain future that arrives too soon. 

I guess you're never really finished parenting, at least not until your offspring begin providing more care to you than you do to them. In that regard, I'll keep my job for much more than 24 years. But it is already clear to me that parenting children and parenting adults are two different experiences that bring different flavors of satisfaction. For sure both are great, and both are fulfilling, but they are not the same.